Forever Young
by TwiVersed
Summary: A not-so-quick, drabble-like look into what the future would be like if Edward refused to change Bella despite the events in Italy. Carries from college on, with Bella wholly, and forlornly, human.


**Hello. So, this is** _ **not**_ **my first fanfiction on this website but I cannot seem to remember my sign-in or password since I have not posted in, oh…ten years? But after randomly becoming re-obsessed with the Twilight series, the juices have begun to flow once again.**

 **Enjoy.**

It wasn't until our freshmen year of college that I realized Edward really was here to stay. He wasn't going to up and leave the next time I was put in harm's way, or the next time I spilled blood around one of his family members. He wasn't going to tell me the dreadful line, _"It's not you, it's me,"_ or any expression close to that.

He loved me, as was evidence of his horrifying plan to lease an apartment together while we were away at college – my choice of college, of course. He wouldn't let me put any money into the place; wouldn't even allow me to split the cost of the water bill. _I_ was the human. _I_ was the one who used most of the water. But he vehemently declined my suggestion with a one of his award winning smiles.

" _Vampires shower as well,"_ had been his faultless argument, the line delivered with a distracting kiss. I had rolled my eyes – once my mind had cleared of the haze that always accompanied any physical interaction with Edward – and secretly went off to order my textbooks online. This would be _one_ thing I would not allow him to purchase.

He hadn't been happy, of course, when a package totaling twelve hundred dollars showed up a week later to our new apartment just outside of Dartmouth College. But arguing was futile; I had already paid in full. He was, however, happy when my truck gave its last wrenching turnover and then died in the parking lot during the first month of the fall semester. Actually, happy was not a joyous enough term. Ecstatic, thrilled, thankful all seemed to fit the emotion better.

And since I had spent the majority of my measly savings on the textbooks that I barely even glanced at, I had allowed him to give me a _loan_ to purchase a new car. He had gone overboard, of course, picking out the most expensive, most _durable_ coupe he could find. It was tiny – something I was not used to, seeing as the truck had been mammoth – but I liked it. I had even begrudgingly thanked him a few days later when I had realized the gas mileage I could get with the car.

" _Finally!"_ he had exclaimed with a hint of derision, _"She is thankful for something I do for her."_

" _I am thankful for_ everything _you do for me, Edward,"_ I had countered crossly, _"Except when it involves money."_

He had only shot me his heartbreaking crooked smile, his golden eyes glittering as they often did. He, of course, was over the moon. Not only had I graduated high school, gone to college, leased an apartment with him, and allowed him to purchase me a new vehicle, I had done all of this whilst remaining human. His decision, not mine. More like _his_ aversion to my becoming immortal, and _not_ my desire to spend eternity with him.

It wasn't until I had turned twenty-three, a year out of college, that I truly realized for the first time that he did not have plans to change me. I had lived through college, basking in our love, believing that one day he would give up and allow me to join him in his afterlife, but each semester that trickled by, each argument that stemmed from this point alone, brought me closer and closer to the truth.

I was to remain human.

Edward became more concerned as my detestation of this prime rule grew.

" _If you are unhappy with the idea of growing old while I remain unchanging, I will understand if you want to move on. I will support your decision, Bella."_ His angelic face had turned ashen as he brought forth this horrendous idea, my wrists clasped in his cold fingers.

" _Of course I don't want anyone but you, Edward, don't be stupid!"_ I had cried, hot tears beginning to cloud my vision. _"I just want to remain unchanging_ with _you. I want to be with you for eternity!"_

He had pulled me into his grasp, brushing the tears from my cheeks. _"And so it will be,"_ he had murmured softly against the wet skin of my jaw, _"We will have our own piece of eternity, Bella."_

I didn't let his verbose words fool me; I knew exactly what this mean. Our eternity would last until I naturally died of old age, just as he wished.

" _But if you do outgrow me, I will not hold it against you. I will always be there to protect you."_ At the time, as with the sentiments this idea had brought about before when he had left all those years ago, I had passionately and violently contended this statement.

However, as the years ticked by, leaving Edward gloriously untouched, beautiful, and forever young, and I withering away at the ghastly age of thirty-two, I began to wonder whether his beliefs had ever held some truth. Of course, I would never want anyone the way that I wanted Edward – I would never give up on my dream that he would make me his forever – but I began to wonder how it would feel to actually grow old _with_ the man you loved. For the two of us to move along the planet in the same fashion.

My aging never seemed to bother him; his eyes always held the thrilling, passionate love that they had when I was seventeen along with him, but that was just the problem – it was the thrilling, passionate love of a seventeen-year-old. An eternal teenager. It wasn't only his physical body that had frozen in time a century ago, but his emotional love as well. He was truly unchanging, as I wished I could have been.

But time had changed me. It had changed the way in which I viewed the world. It had changed the way I viewed myself. I was no longer that passionate, fervid teenager. I was more matured now; more inclined to receive a matured, lasting love. I reminded myself of Esme, and that was _not_ good – especially since she was younger than _me_ , now.

Edward had walked into the room the day after my fortieth birthday, wrapping his marble arms around me as I gazed at my face in the mirror. I had good genes – both of my parents had not aged terribly – but even genetics could not keep away the crow's feet and wrinkles; the beginnings of grey hair.

He had kissed my cheek lovingly, running his nose along the column of my throat. I studied the differences between the two of us now. We really did resemble mother and son, though in public we went with aunt and nephew. He knew how distasteful this was to me; he _knew_ how heartbroken I had been when Alice had delivered the news that it may be time to change up our husband and wife story. We _were_ husband and wife, of course – we had been since the summer after graduating college – but to the outside world, we were only relatives.

" _The outside world does not matter._ Our _world, matters, Bella. And in our world, we are still just as married, still just as in love, still just as much the Edward and Bella that we had been when we were both teenagers."_ I had turned in his arms, gazing into his unfathomable ochre eyes. _Were we the same Edward and Bella?_ I had almost asked, but held my tongue. I did not want to see the endless love and devotion harden in his eyes at the question, only to ease back into a more forced happiness.

He could see, I knew. He could see the changes within me. He may be able to ignore the external changes of age, but he knew that aging had also altered me internally. Of course, I still loved him. Of course, I was happy to have him as my husband, but just as all those years ago after college…it wasn't enough.

He could see this, and it scared him.

Sometimes I would feel his adoring, yet careful eyes on me when he would think I was too preoccupied with something else. I could practically hear his thoughts, hear the questioning running through his mind as to what my feelings were towards him now. It wasn't that I was becoming distant…it was just that I was more reserved now in my love. If I had to pretend for the outside world, why not keep it for our inside world as well?

Besides, it's not like I had anything more to go on other than our heated kisses. Edward had still not touched me, physically, at least. It was still too dangerous, he had assured me all throughout college and then afterwards for a few years. I had stopped hinting at my primal need a while back. This, too, seemed to concern him. I could feel it in his lingering touches, his lasting hugs, the way he would hold me at night.

He was afraid he was losing me; afraid that I was finally going to give up on my beautiful, yet oh-so-young, vampire husband. I wasn't, but I hadn't been able to reassure him enough. Maybe this was how fate dealt his hand to us: I did not have reassurance of an eternity with the love of my life, and he did not have reassurance of my unwavering devotion to him. It seemed like a fair, if not dismal, tradeoff.

By the time I turned fifty-five, he seemed in better – and worse – spirits. Better because clearly, after almost six decades, I had not given up on him. I still loved him wholly and I still allowed him to love me passionately. Worse because he was coming to terms with the idea that my life was half over. But it wasn't until my sixty-fifth birthday, ten years later, that I finally decided to question the future.

" _Can you see the exact day?"_ I had asked Alice one afternoon while she was preparing tea on the kettle for me. Edward had reluctantly gone hunting with Carlisle and Jasper and I figured now would be the perfect time to ask.

Alice had brought me the remote, her expression grim. She knew this question was coming. I would not be surprised if Edward asked every day. _"No, Bella, I can't. And even if I did, I would hide it from you and Edward as long as possible."_ Her face fell as she watched me mull over her answer.

The remote had slipped from my trembling fingers onto the floor – a sign of tender age – and Emmett had swept into the room quickly to collect it and put on a channel for me. Jeopardy. After all these years. He sat beside me quietly. Even Emmett had forsaken my clumsiness now. He hardly cracked a joke at my expense. It seemed everyone was in dismal spirits today. I wondered briefly whether that was because Jasper was not here. Was it his talent that had kept everyone so happy over the past few years as time slipped around us?

" _Hide it from him, but please don't hide it from me,"_ I had requested quietly. Alice had studied my wasted face for a moment before nodding reluctantly. I hadn't missed the pained expression as she turned back to the kitchen. Perhaps she already knew.

The next five years had been quiet. The calm before the storm.

It was the night after my seventieth birthday; a macabre event. All of the Cullen's were in attendance. Rosalie had even helped me dress for the event. She had begun conversing cordially with me around my thirtieth year. Even she knew that Edward would not change me past such an advanced age.

" _Do you regret it?"_ I had asked Edward as he pulled the quilt over my frail form. He moved quickly to lie beside me on the large bed. It was almost as though he were trying not to waste a single second with me.

He studied my face gently, his finger moving a strand of thin, gray hair away from my sallow cheek. I wondered if our skin tones matched now, but I could hardly see the coloring what with my failing eyesight. My glasses were too far and I did not want to ask Edward to retrieve them for me. I was too tired anyhow.

" _This is how it was meant to be. You were supposed to age, as you have done beautifully."_ His tender smile didn't reach his eyes as he watched me heave in a sigh. Perhaps he did regret not changing me.

" _I could have stayed young with you forever,"_ I boasted softly, my own smile pulling at my lips. It was a lost cause, anyhow. There was no use fighting the inevitable. His golden eyes flamed in that way that I had often seen over the past few years. The way that told me he would cry if he could.

" _Just get some rest, love,"_ he had answered in his muted velvet voice, moving to flick off the lamp beside us. We were quickly sheathed in darkness, but that did not stop me from feeling the accelerated rise and fall of his chest as his breathing hastened. He hadn't wanted to talk about it, which could only mean one thing.

" _I love you, Isabella,"_ I had heard him mumble softly. His face pressing to my hair and the encircling of his cold arms were the last things I felt as I fell into my own version of night.

I had woken with a start, gasping as my body jolted upright faster than I would have thought possible what with my increasingly frail strength. But my eyes were wide, staring at a familiar window before me; light yellow curtains surrounding the wooden frame. Confused, my gaze turned to the blankets around me. Light purple with darker purple flowering imprints. I knew this room. I was in Forks. What was I doing in Forks?

My eyes flickered to the alarm on my night stand. It was just past six, evidently, in the morning what with the gentle stream of a sunless sky cascading through the window. I glanced around at my surroundings and then relaxed back into bed, my hands coming over my face in relief.

 _It was just a dream_.

Or a nightmare; it was however I decided to interpret the highly detailed, _extremely_ long storyline. Dream because Edward hadn't left; nightmare because I had _died_ old and _human_.

"Ugh!" I threw the blankets off of me in my haste to get up. Edward must not have left too long ago, sneaking lithely out through the window so as not to wake me earlier than necessary. I desperately wanted to see him, to see the entrancing Edward that had left me human for seventy years.

I stared at my face in the mirror. Young, alive, vibrant. _Thank god._

My calendar was blissfully marking a Thursday in the first week of April. It was still senior year…I was still wonderfully eighteen. Even better, there was still plenty of time to convince Edward to change me; to convince him that he _didn't_ want to see me grow old and die. I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to go about this quest, but I knew that I wholeheartedly _was_.

Dream Bella – old, fragile, weak, dying – was not going to be the _real_ Bella. The real Bella was going to be immortal and with Edward until the earth no longer existed. And hopefully even after that. I wondered briefly what _would_ happen to all the vampires once the world ceased to exist. _Would_ the world cease to exist?

With a shake of my head and my newfound excitement over the prospect of my young – hopefully forever – life, I drove off to school.

The Volvo was already there and waiting in its non-official official spot. Everyone knew that the Cullen's all parked beside each other, and everyone knew that I, too, parked beside them. But I _would_ be a Cullen, I decided with a large smile.

Edward was leaning against the silver door, his glorious, beautiful face turned towards me as I parked hastily and jumped from the cab. _Yes, mammoth._ He grabbed my bag from me with a chuckle.

"You seem in an exceptionally good mood this morning," he remarked and I couldn't help but to grin back at him, making it my job to study his features as I had been doing for the past couple of weeks since he had returned. His golden eyes melted as he leaned in, pressing his cool, unyielding lips to mine.

Automatically, my arms swung to wrap around his neck, attempting to pull him closer to me and deepen the kiss. He allowed it, to a degree, before I felt his lips turn up at the corners in a conclusive smile. It was okay; we would not have to be so careful soon, I decided.

"I love you," I said in an almost severe tone and he studied my face momentarily, clearly thrown for a loop by my positive outlook so early in the morning. I was not a morning person, as he had pointed out a while ago.

His face dropped suddenly, turning even more pale than it normally was and it reminded me of the ashen look to my imagined-Edward's face as he had feared I wanted someone else. Someone human. The look made my stomach drop.

"Did you have a nightmare after I left?" he asked quietly, but dejectedly, leaning in closer to study my face. I inhaled quickly and then rapidly let out the air. I knew exactly what kind of nightmare he was talking about and, surprisingly, that hadn't been at the forefront of my unconscious mind. Just something almost as bad as him leaving – me remaining human.

"No," I assured him. "A strange dream, but no. Not that nightmare." He seemed relieved, running his hand through his bronze hair quickly before straightening up.

"Bella…" he started but I cut him off quickly with a shake of my head.

" _No_ ," I stated firmly. "It's a good day, remember? And I've already forgiven you." I smiled at him, hoping to relieve the pain that I had seen building in his ochre eyes, and it seemed to work as he sighed with a shake of his head.

"I love you, too," he said smoothly before grasping my hand in his and interlacing our fingers. "Now, let's get to class before we are late." I glanced around us at the nearly empty-of-students parking lot. How late had _I_ been?

"Wait." I pulled back on his hand as he began to walk forward. Though he could have easily pulled me along, he stopped, glancing back at me with an arched eyebrow. "Kiss me one more time," I demanded. He rolled his eyes, but the expression on his face was light, a small smile tugging at his lips as he leaned in to do as he was told.

Classes were boring, as usual, and the droning of the teachers were in the back of my mind. Though this time it was not due to the distraction of Edward sitting beside me, but due to the racing of my mind to attempt to come up with some sort of plan. It would need to be fool-proof; shocking. I could not just come out and ask for immortality as I had so many times before.

I could feel Edward's eyes on me once in a while as he tried to decipher what I was doing. Clearly, I was not paying attention in classes. My notes were only hastily written words that were plastered on the board – not the full paragraph script that typically accompanied an English lecture. I could only thank god that he hadn't asked me what I was thinking about, although perhaps, after his intense fright this morning, he didn't want to know.

Finally, it was in calculus – my one class sans Edward – that I was able to come up with a plan. Shocking? Yes. Fool-proof…probably not. No one could fool Edward, it seemed, and it would be a miracle if Alice didn't give away my plans with her visions. With my luck, Edward would already have a written and memorized response to my scheme.

But when lunch came around, and Alice was not at the table, a panic began to settle in as I remembered the last time this sight had welcomed me.

"She's only hunting with Jasper. She'll be back Saturday," Edward assured me, shaking my shoulder slightly to get me to continue walking.

"Oh," I said and then looked around quickly. The cafeteria was abuzz with commotion. Apparently, the sun was supposed to be making an arrival later today into the weekend. Which meant no Edward…

"Can we do something after school? I don't have to work…" Edward looked surprised at my request. Typically, he just came over and we did homework together until Charlie came home and kicked him out at five. It was the small amount of alone time we had, besides every night, of course.

"Of course. Will Charlie allow that, though?"

I shrugged at his concern, "He'll be working. He won't know."

He smiled. "What would you like to do?"

"Could we go to the meadow?" We hadn't been back there since his return and I thought it best to draw out my scheme on common ground. Although, technically, it was _his_ meadow.

"We can leave straight from school if you wish," he answered, the smile widening. He liked the meadow, especially when the sun would be out. _I_ liked the meadow… _especially_ when the sun was out. My gaze turned down to his bare forearms, his long sleeved shirt pushed just past his elbows which rested on the table as I thought about seeing his skin in the sun once more. There hadn't been many opportunities for it and at least he would be magnificently radiating as he groaned over my idea.

Lunch and the rest of the day went by quickly as I fretted over my plot. He _definitely_ would not like it. And I had thought, in calculus, that perhaps it would be humorous even, but as I stared at him and his glinting marble skin in the middle of the flowered field, I no longer felt the plan was humorous. It was stupid, really. Incongruous.

I fingered the folded paper in my jacket pocket that I had hastily written during calculus, chewing away at my lip. Edward moved his hand from mine, grasping my face instead.

"Bella, why do you seem so anxious?" Using his thumb, he pulled my bottom lip from between my teeth, grazing his finger across the surface of my lips as I pulled in a shaky breath. _Now or never_.

I grabbed the piece of notebook paper from my pocket, hesitating slightly before holding it out to him. He stared at it for a moment before releasing me, taking the folded page delicately from my fingers.

"What's this?" he asked, unfolding the page with a speed I could never muster.

"I wrote it for you." My heart was pounding away in my chest and he glanced at me with wonder before quickly scanning the list I had written out. There were ten songs in total, complete with title and artist.

"You want me to make you another composition?" He quirked an eyebrow at me questioningly. Clearly some of the songs could not be rendered on a piano alone.

"No…" The rest of my words followed in a rush before I lost my willpower, "This is what I want you to play at my funeral. There will probably be more songs added to the list as the years slip by, but I'll give you an updated version when I'm fifty. If I even make it that far…" I trailed off. Sure, in my dream I had lasted until seventy, but with my inability to repel danger, I would be lucky to live for another ten years. His expression, shocked at first, turned angry.

"What are you talking about?' he practically growled. He glanced back down at the list with scorn.

"You're the only one that I know for sure will be at my funeral when I die, so I figured I'd make it easier on you. I can even tell you what food I want served. Oh, and I think I want a closed casket –"

"Bella." He was still staring at the list in his hand, his expression now unreadable. I ignored his interruption, continuing on, "Because an open casket seems too dreary, don't you think?"

" _Stop_ ," he scolded, but I shook my head at him though he didn't see.

"Unless, of course, I die while I'm still young, which, let's be honest here, doesn't seem too farfetched –"

" _Bella!"_ He was livid now, but he still hadn't looked up at me which was really putting a damper on my ability to really assess his reaction. Was he angry because I had brought this topic up yet again? Or was he finally seeing my point?

"What Edward?" My tone was forcefully innocent. "Don't you want me to have the funeral _I_ want?" Finally, his eyes trailed up from the paper to meet mine. They were hard and cold; the gold seemed frozen solid.

"I won't be attending your funeral," he stated coolly. Now it was my turn to stare at him in shock.

"What? _Why?_ " I was honestly afraid of the reason as the gears in my head starting turning. He remained silent, staring at me coldly. _"I don't think he ever planned to outlive you by long,"_ Alice had said to me once.

"No. No! _NO!_ " I was on the verge of a panic attack, moving towards him quickly. "We've talked about this, Edward! You promised me!"

"I did no such thing," he said quietly, his voice aloof, his jaw clenched. Hadn't he told me before that he didn't want to live in a world where I ceased to exist?

"You can't get yourself killed when I die – you're not allowed!"

His eyes softened a bit as he looked at me and I could only imagine what he saw in my expression. "What choice do I have?" he implored quietly, "I refuse to live in a world where you don't exist." His words almost perfectly matched what he had told me upon his return a few short weeks ago. My breathing picked up as I thought about him running off to Volterra again.

"Just because you're being selfish by not changing me –"

" _Selfish?!_ " The angry glint was back tenfold now as he interrupted me, "No, Bella, _selfish_ would be me damning you to this never ending night just because I want to keep you forever. _Selfish_ would be taking you from you parents, your friends, your home just because I don't want to ever let you go. _Selfish_ would be forcing you to live this non-existent existence just for the sake of being with you for eternity." His rant ended, his breathing almost as erratic as mine though his was wholly unnecessary. I stared at him, my eyebrows furrowed, but there was one small thing that was eating away at me, giving me hope.

"So you do want me forever?" I asked, a small smile stretching on my face regardless of the argument we were having. As long as he wanted me forever – as long as there was a part of him that wanted to change me so that we could be together forever – there was hope.

"As if the past couple of weeks weren't proof enough of that," he snapped, looking away from me. He never usually spoke to me in such a way, but I knew where the anger was stemming from now. He wanted me to be like him, too. And he hated himself for it.

"But you know that the only way to keep me forever is to change me."

"I'm aware, yes." His tone was clipped, curt. I stared at his profile, studying the straight line of his nose, the clenching of his jaw. His rapidly moving chest reminded me of the ending of my dream; the final scene where I was falling asleep for the last time. He _would_ regret not changing me in those final moments. I knew it.

"Your family –"

"Will do as I ask them to," he interrupted, glaring over at me.

"It was a majority vote, Edward. In favor of me becoming like you. Carlisle _said_ after graduation –"

"Carlisle did not have a right to agree. You are _mine_ , not _his_. You are _my_ mate and I will decide whether you are damned to this existence. I _will_ make him go back on his word." His harshly spoken words and the anger glinting through his eyes as he glowered at me had me slinking back just a bit.

"I don't want to be old and dying, Edward. I want to stay young forever, with you. I know you'll still want me when I'm old; I know you'll still love me…. But one lifetime is not enough for me." I kept my head down as I spoke softly, listening to the angered breaths that released from his flared nostrils. Suddenly, his breathing halted. I glanced up quickly, making sure he was still there. He was watching me curiously, the anger ebbing at the corners of his brilliant orbs.

"Does this have anything to do with your dream?"

I flushed, looking back down quickly. How would he even be able to conclude that? He was right, of course, but how…?

"It was like my life in fast forward as a human," I said quietly, still not daring to look up at him. "Each decade you stayed the same and I got…old," I finished flatly. I didn't want to tell him about the other realization that had come about in my dream; the fact that our loves would blossom two different ways. Or, more accurately, my love would blossom into a more mature love, and his would not.

"I've told you, Bella. I don't care –"

"But _I_ care!" I cried harshly, cutting off his soft, cajoling voice. Hot tears rimmed my eyes and I glared up at him.

"Why do you not want me forever, Edward? What are you so afraid of? Do you think I won't be the same? Do you think I won't feel the same way for you? Or are you afraid that you won't feel the same about me?" I gasped as my mouth made the connections before my mind could catch up. "Is that it? Do you only want me as a warm, blushing, fragile human? You won't want me when I'm cold and indestructible?" The tears fell quickly and largely now, running down my cheeks and diving beneath my chin.

"Don't be ridiculous, Bella," he said, his mouth hanging slightly agape as he stared at me. Something flashed across his eyes. It looked remarkably like horror. "I will want you no matter how you are. Cold or warm, mortal or immortal, alive or dead." He hesitated on the last word.

"Then _change_ me, Edward," I pleaded, literally clasping my hands before him and kneeling on my knees. "Don't leave me human. Don't leave me to grow old while you stay young." The tears hadn't stopped upon my pleading and Edward's fingers moved to dash them from my cheeks, but more quickly fell to take their place.

"Why are you doing this to me?" he groaned. It was a similar phrase that he had begged of Carlisle the night I had forced his family to vote on my immortality; the night Carlisle promised to change me after graduation; the night Edward had grasped me in his large, cold hands, telling me that their votes did not matter to him. That he was not going to change me.

" _Please, Edward._ " It was a hopeless phrase, but I could see his jaw clenching and unclenching, his eyes raking my face as though searching for some type of weakness. Abruptly, his fingers fisted into my hair as he pulled me into him, holding me tight to his hard body.

"You'll hate me," he moaned quietly, "You'll _despise_ me for all of eternity, Bella." He buried his face in my hair and I drew in a shaky breath, a few more tears spilling onto his dark cloth covered shoulder.

"I won't," I promised him. "I could never hate you. I'm _asking_ for this, Edward. I will be so grateful to you; so devoted." There was no need to air the fact that I would be devoted to him no matter what, but this seemed to dwindle his anger.

"This is all that I want," I added fervently, wrapping my arms around his toned waist. "I'll give you anything that you want. Anything at all if you give me this one thing. You can buy me anything you'd like – a new car, tuition, books." My mind ran to the car in my dream. I could practically sense his hesitation as I laid out the possibilities. "It doesn't have to be now," I continued, "We can still wait until after I've graduated."

"Anything I want?" he implored after a moment, his face still pressed between my neck and my shoulder. His cold breath brushed my heated skin, tickling the sensitive area.

"Anything," I breathed, holding my breath in the hope that he was finally giving in.

He pulled back just enough to look into my watered eyes, his golden eyes holding that burning look that I recognized from my dream. Would he be crying if he could? I unclasped my hands from around him, running one along the side of his face. His eyes closed to me momentarily, before opening again with a blinding heat.

"I only want one thing," he murmured, holding my hand to his face as he leaned in to the touch.

"Tell me and it's yours," I assured him eagerly. He hesitated for a moment, biting down on his lip in a move that was very me-like.

"I want you," he said quietly, his cool breath rushing over my face like a sugary breeze. I stared at him in confusion. This was what this entire argument was about – him keeping me forever and vice versa.

"You have me already," I answered perplexedly.

"I want you _legally_ ," he amended and I was even more confused. Legally? What would that even… _Oh_. I stared at him, my eyes widening.

"Marry me, Bella. Marry me and then I will change you." His eyes were like golden saucers as he stared at me keenly, awaiting my response. I swallowed and then narrowed my eyes at him. Did he think this was the one thing I was not willing to give up? My legal name? If all it took was our names on a piece of paper, tying us together, surely I would give him this if I got forever out of it.

I bit my lip to hide the small smile that tugged at the corners of my mouth. As if marriage would bind me to him any more than I already am.

"Okay," I agreed softly.

 **I never really did understand why marriage was such an issue to her. I understand that her parents were divorced, but surely marriage is nothing compared to an eternity with your vampire lover, right? It is, after all, just words on paper. But, anyway, thanks for reading!**

 **Oh, P.S., I realized at the end that the threat of the Volturi would still be imminent, but I guess, in Bella's dreamland, they did not exist!**


End file.
